SECTION II.

IS THE REVOLUTION THE FULFILLING OF CHRISTIANITY?

SEVERAL eminent writers, with a laudable wish for peace and reconciliation, have lately affirmed that the Revolution was but the accomplishment of Christianity, that it came to continue and to realize the latter, and to make good all it had promised.*

If this assertion be well founded, the eighteenth century, the philosophers, the precursors, the masters of the Revolution, have grievously erred, and have acted very differently from their real intentions. Generally, they aimed at anything rather than the accomplishment of Christianity.

It

If the Revolution consisted in that, and nothing more, it would then not be distinct from Christianity, but the actual time of its existence, its virile age-its age of reason. would be nothing in itself. In this case, there would not be two actors, but one,-Christianity. If there be but one actor, then no drama, no crisis; the struggle we believe we see, is a mere illusion; the world seems to be agitated, but, in reality, is motionless.

But no, it is not so. The struggle is but too real. There is no sham fight here between one and the same person. There are two distinct combatants.

Neither must it be said that the new principle is but a criticism on the old one,- -a doubt, a mere negation. Who ever saw a negation? What is a living, an acting negation, one that vivifies like this? A world sprang forth from it yesterday. No: in order to produce, there must be existence.

Therefore, there are two things here, and not one,—it is impossible to deny it. There are two principles, two spiritsthe old and the new.

In vain the former, confident of life, and for this reason so much the more pacific, would whisper to the latter: "I come to fulfil, and not to abolish." The old principle has no manner of wish to be fulfilled. The very word sounds ominous and

*See, among other works, Quinet's "Christianity and the French Revo lution." (London, Longman & Co., 1846.)—C. C.

C

18

CHRISTIANITY AND THE REVOLUTION.

sepulchral; it rejects that filial benediction, and desires neither tears nor prayers; it flings aside the branch that is shaken over it.

We must keep clear of misunderstandings, if we would know whither we are going.

The Revolution continues Christianity, and it contradicts it. It is, at the same time, its heir and its adversary.

In sentiment, and in all that is general and human between them, the two principles agree, but in all that constitutes very and special life,-in the operations of the mind, from which both derive their birth,-they are adverse and thwart each

other.

They agree in the sentiment of human fraternity. This sentiment, born with man, with the world, common to every society, has nevertheless been made more extensive and profound by Christianity. This is its glory, its eternal palm. It found fraternity confined to the banquets of ancient states; it extended its influence, and spread it throughout the vast Christian world. In her turn, the Revolution, the daughter of Christianity, has taught its lessons to the whole world, to every race, and to every religion under the sun.

This is the whole of the resemblance. Now for the difference. The Revolution founds fraternity on the love of man for man, on mutual duty,-on Right and Justice. This base is fundamental, and no other is necessary.

It did not seek to add to this certain principle one derived from dubious history. It did not ground fraternity on a common relationship,-a filiation which transmits, with our blood, the participation of crime from father to son.

This carnal, material principle, which introduces justice and injustice into the blood, and transmits them, with the tide of life, from one generation to another, violently contradicts the spiritual notion of Justice which is implanted in the depths of the human soul. No; Justice is not a fluid, to be transmitted with generation. Will alone is just or unjust; the heart alone feels itself responsible. Justice is entirely in the soul; the body has nothing to do with it.

This barbarous material starting-point is astounding in a religion that has carried the subtlety of the dogma farther than any other. It impresses upon the whole system a profound

CRIME AND SALVATION.

19

character of arbitrariness, from which no subtlety will be able to extricate it. Arbitrariness reaches, penetrates the developments of the dogma, all the religious institutions which are derived from it; and, lastly, the civil order, which, in the middle ages, is itself derived from those institutions, imitates its forms and is swayed by its spirit.

Let us consider this grand sight:

I. The starting-point is this: Crime comes from one, salvation from one; Adam has lost, Christ has saved.

He has saved! Why? Because he would save. No other motive. No virtue, no work of man, no human merit can deserve this prodigious sacrifice of God sacrificing himself. He gives himself, but for nothing: that is the miracle of love; he asks of man no work,-no anterior merit.

II. What does he require in return for this immense sacrifice? One single thing: people to believe in him, to believe themselves indeed saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. Faith is the condition of salvation, and not the works of Righteousness.

No Righteousness without faith. Whoever does not believe is unrighteous. Is righteousness without faith of any use? No.

Saint Paul, in laying down this principle of salvation by faith alone, has nonsuited Righteousness. Henceforth she is, at most, only an accessory, a sequel, one of the effects of faith.

III. Having once quitted Righteousness, we must ever go on descending into Necessity.

Believe, or perish! The question being thus laid down, people discover with terror that they will perish, that salvation is attached to a condition independent of the will. We do not believe as we will.

Saint Paul had laid down that man can do nought by good works, but only by faith. Saint Augustine demonstrates his insufficiency in faith itself. God alone gives it; he gives it even gratuitously, without requiring anything, neither faith nor justice. This gratuitous gift, this grace, is the only cause of salvation. God gives grace to whom he pleases. Saint Augustine has said: "I believe, because it is absurd." He might also say in this system: "I believe, because it is unjust."

Necessity goes no further. The system is consummated. God loves; no other explanation; he loves whom he pleases.

20

EMBARRASSMENT OF CHRISTIANITY.

the least of all, the sinner, the least deserving. Love is its own reason; it requires no merit.

What then would be merit, if we may still employ this word? To be loved, the elect of God, predestined to salvation. And demerit, damnation! To be hated by God, condemned beforehand, created for damnation.

Alas! we believed just now that humanity was saved. The sacrifice of a God seemed to have blotted out the sins of the world. No more judgment, no more justice. Blind that we were! we were rejoicing, believing justice drowned in the blood of Jesus Christ. And lo! judgment re-appears more harsh, a judgment without justice, or at least the justice of which will be hidden from us for ever. The elect of God, the favourite, receives from him, with the gift of faith, the gift of doing good works,-the gift of salvation. That justice should be a gift! For our part, we had thought it was active, the very act of the will. Yet here we have it passive, transmitted as a present, from God to the elect of his heart.

This doctrine, made into a formula more severely by the Protestants, is no less that of the Catholic world, such as it is acknowledged by the Council of Trent.

If grace (it says with the apostle) were not gratuitous, as its very name implies, if it ought to be merited by works of righteousness, it would be righteousness, and no longer grace. (Conc. Trid., sess. vi. cap. viii.)

Such, says that council, has been the permanent belief of the church. And it could not be otherwise; it is the groundwork of Christianity; beyond that, there is philosophy, but no longer religion. The latter is the religion of grace,—of gratuitous, arbitrary salvation, and of the good pleasure of God.

Great was the embarrassment when Christianity, with this doctrine opposed to justice, was called to govern, to judge the world,-when Jurisprudence descended from her prætorium, and said to the new faith: " Judge in my place,'

Then were people able to see at the bottom of this doctrine, which seemed to be sufficient for the world, an abyss of insufficiency, uncertainty, and discouragement.

If he remained faithful to the principle that salvation is a gift, and not the reward of Justice, man would have folded his arms, sat down, and waited; for well he knew that his works

CHRISTIANITY AND JUSTICE.

21

could have no influence on his lot. All moral activity ceased in this world. And how could civil life, order, human justice, be maintained? God loves, and no longer judges. How shall man judge? Every judgment, religious or political, is a flagrant contradiction in a religion founded solely on a dogma foreign to justice.

Without justice one cannot live. Therefore, the Christian world must put up with the contradiction. This introduces into many things something false and wrong; and this double position is only surmounted by means of hypocritical formulæ. The church judges, yet judges not; kills, yet kills not. She has a horror of shedding blood; therefore she burns -What do I say? She does not burn. She hands over the culprit to another to burn, and adds moreover a little prayer, as if to intercede a terrible comedy, wherein Justice, false and cruel justice, assumes the mask of grace!

A strange punishment of the excessive ambition which desired more than justice, and yet despised it! This church has remained without justice. When, in the middle ages, she sees the latter reviving again, she wants to draw nearer to her. She tries to speak like her, to assume her language; she avows that man can do something towards his salvation by works of righteousness. Vain efforts! Christianity can be reconciled with Papinian only by withdrawing from Saint Paulquitting its proper base, and leaning aside at the risk of losing its equilibrium and being dashed to atoms.

Having Necessity for a starting-point, this system must remain in Necessity; it cannot step beyond it.* All the

At the present day, people despair of reconciling these different views. They no longer attempt to make peace between the dogma and justice. They manage matters better. Now they show it, now they conceal it. To simple confiding persons, to women, to children, whom they keep docile and obedient, they teach the old doctrine which places a terrible arbitrariness in God and in the man of God, and gives up the trembling creature defenceless to the priest. This terror is ever the faith and the law of the latter; the sword ever remains keen-edged for those poor hearts.

If, on the contrary, they speak to the strong, to thinkers and politicians, they suddenly become indulgent: "Is Christianity, after all, anywhere but in the Gospel? Are faith and philosophy so at variance? The old dispute between Grace and Justice (that is, the question to know whether Christianity be just) is quite obsolete."

This double policy has two effects, and both fatal. It weighs heavily upon